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Cas is sleeping in the backseat, his mouth open, a line of drool working its way down his chin, the wet of it shiny in the moonlight. Sam’s asleep in the front passenger seat, right temple resting on the cold glass. Condensation rings out from the point of contact.
The radio is turned down so low, all Dean can hear is the clicking of the cassette wheels as the tape plays.
They’re the only car on the road this late at night, and despite the company, he feels like he’s the only person on the planet. The fact that they've been driving back roads to stay under the radar doesn't help matters at all.
Castiel’s knee presses into the back of the seat, Dean forgetting that it was even there. He’s used to the hard press of bone and cartilage, that is, until Cas shifts and his knee slides south, away from Dean’s lower back. Dean shoots a look up to the rear view mirror, checking on the guy, but Cas's face is still the same-- open and trusting.
The road curves and dips, a large stand of trees appearing suddenly on his right. The foliage cuts off his view of the moon, leaving the interior of the car lit by the front panel and nothing else. The road curves again, so sharp that it’s practically a turn, and suddenly Dean is presented with a three-way stop.
The car skids into the intersection, Dean's hands tight on the wheel, his breath catching in his chest. He can hear the brakes grind and the squeal of rubber burning onto the road. He grits his teeth to keep from shouting out. The Impala finally stops and he can hear the wind in the trees just over the rumble of the Impala's engine. He checks on his passengers, both still asleep (and how is that even possible?), then looks back to the road.
In the center of the intersection stands a woman in white. Dean's breath catches and his hands reach for a shot gun that isn't there. Her dress billows in the wind, her hair whipping around her face. She glows, like she's lit from within, but Dean thinks it just because she's in his headlights. She raises one hand and beckons.
"You have got to be shitting me, lady." Dean growls the words out, low and just to himself. It would probably be a good idea to wake Sam up and get this taken care of. The woman in white it still looking at him, eyes dark and empty.
Dean startles when he feels Castiel's hand on his shoulder, jumping in his seat a little bit. Dean’s knee knocks against the dash and he curses under his breath. He ignores both the ache and the need to rub at it with his fingers.
"God damn it, Cas. What the hell?" He keeps his voice as low as possible, the words tight and dry in his mouth. He hasn't said much of anything for a long stretch of time now, and he probably needs some water or a beer or something to wet everything down.
"She needs your help.” Cas doesn't move his hand, just squeezes Dean's shoulder with a firm grip, his fingers warm and perfect where they're resting. "She knows who you are. She knows what you can do." Cas speaks in his normal tone of voice, and Dean can’t help but look over at his brother, sleeping the sleep of the bone weary.
"We should wake Sam up. Get rid of this bitch."
"Dean." Castiel sounds disappointed in him. Dean frowns, not entirely sure why Cas would feel that way or why Dean should even care. "She wants your help. Surely, you can give it to her."
“What help could I possibly give her?” Dean asks the question, his foot heavy on the brake. His eyes look up, into the rear view mirror, trying to catch Cas’s gaze. He doesn’t like how unsure he sound, how desperate he seems.
“The world is ending, Dean. Lucifer is coming. There are things on this earth that would prefer not to be, when the time comes. ” Cas’s fingers curl a bit deep down Dean’s shoulder and then release their grip, the sudden lack of heat making Dean moan a bit, but just under his breath. Cas leans back against the seat and closes his eyes, chest moving in and out as he sighs. “She wants to rest now, to stop walking. I do not blame her.”
Dean wants to argue the point. They're still fighting, he wants to say, and if they can manage it, Lucifer will stay trapped in his cage, at least for a little while longer. But the further they get down the road, the less likely it seems that they can stop it. The woman in white is still standing there, arm reaching for help from him, reaching out for someone to rescue her.
He looks into the rear view mirror and sees Cas's face, dark circles under his eyes, lines around them stark in the moonlight. He's so tired- they all are- but it's weird to see it on Cas. He's always seemed so untouchable and Dean guesses that's the way angels are supposed to look. It's tough to see his angel looking rough around the edges.
It hits him that Castiel sound pretty fatalistic. Like it was inevitable that they were going to lose.
"Dude, do you think Lucifer is going to win?" Dean's voice is sharp, defensive.
"Dean, I do not know what lies in the future. I am only telling you what she believes."
"What do you believe?"
Castiel leans forward again, his head slipping up and over the back of Dean's seat. His face slides in close to Dean's, blurry due to the proximity. Dean can see the reflection of the car's front panel in Cas's eyes.
"I believe that we will fight as long as we can, as hard as we can, until it is over. Whatever that means." Cas smells like road food and dial soap, the kind you find wrapped in paper in the cheap motels, and toothpaste. He's close enough that Dan could kiss him. If he wanted to. Which he doesn't. He doesn't think. "You should go and help her."
"What?" Cas points out the front windshield, to the woman in white, and Dean groans to himself. "All right. Fine." He throws off his seat belt and pushes his door open. Which is when Sam wakes up.
"What's happening?" Sam sounds like he did when he was five, tired and cranky. Dean is not in the mood, not with the fatalistic angel in the back seat and the woman in white blocking the road.
"Oh, my God. Just go back to sleep." Dean slams the door shut, then rubs it gently, trying to apologize to his baby for treating her that way. He debates popping the trunk and grabbing a shotgun but Cas is looking at him through the window, his finger pointing forward. "All right. Fine. I'm going."
He stomps up to the front of the car and crosses his arms in front of him. The woman in white's face turns toward him and he meets her eyes, waiting.
"What? What do you want?" Her dress flaps around her but doesn't make a sound and Dean realizes that there isn't nearly enough wind to make the fabric really move like that. She turns, slowly, arm still outstretched but now she's pointing, up the road, to the west. He can't see what she's pointing at, at first, but then he lets his eyes adjust and he can see the outline of a graveyard, small and crumbling. "Got it. I need to get some stuff. Give me a minute."
She lowers her arm and waits. Dean sighs to himself and heads back to the car. He opens the driver's side door and gets in.
"What the hell, Dean?" Sam is really awake now, body tense next to him, Cas still slouching in the back seat.
"She wants us to help her move on."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Nope. Ask Highway to Heaven back there. Totally serious." Dean puts the car in drive and eases slowly forward, trying not to run through the woman in white, even knowing that she's dead and can't possibly feel it. He takes the left turn slowly and stops in front of the little graveyard, pulling the Impala halfway off the road.
"Do you want some help?"
"Of course, dude. The grave isn't going to dig itself."
Dean gets out, keys jingling in his hand, and he hears Sam do the same as he pops the trunk. Two shovels (because God forbid that Cas actually help them dig up the body), the gas canister, a box of salt, and a shotgun, just in case. He closes the trunk and tosses a shovel at his brother, who catches it easily in one hand.
They cross the road and just as they pass through the tiny gate to enter the graveyard, the woman in white appears in front of them. Dean jumps and he can hear Sam laughing softly behind him.
"Scare you, did she, Dean?"
"Shut up." He waits for her to move but she doesn't, just floats there in front of him. "Okay, seriously? I don't know who you are or where you're rotting. So if you could lead the way, I'd appreciate it. The apocalypse is coming. Chop, chop." He snaps his fingers at her and he could swear that she rolls her eyes at him before she turns and heads towards the back of the cemetery.
She stops in front of a small stone, the face almost completely washed away by time and weather. It's under a tree, so the moonlight doesn't reach it. Dean crouches down and pulls out his lighter. He can barely read the first name- SARAH- and he for sure can't see the last. He rises and looks at her.
"You Sarah?" She slowly nods her head. He points to the stone. "And this is you?" She nods again, more emphatically. "Because if I dig up the wrong Sarah, and have to do it again, I'm gonna be pissed." She points at the stone herself, with more force than she's shown previously, so Dean's pretty sure that this is it. "Right. Let's do this."
He and Sam start digging, falling into old patterns and rhythms as they break up the hard packed dirt and move it away. It's Sam who hits the casket first but it's Dean who breaks it open. She was buried in the same white dress that her ghost is still wearing, her hair left long and loose. She's beautiful, Dean thinks, if you can get around the fact that she's a spirit, haunting a road, possibly killing people.
He salts the corpse then douses it in gasoline but waits to light it up. He's covered in dirt and sweat, but feeling pretty good. This was what he was trained to do almost his entire life and he can feel the rightness of everything he's just done, down into his bones. Normally this is the fun part, watching it burn. But this is different than most of his salt and burns. The ghost led him to where she was buried and it's the ghost that wants him to take care of business.
Something in him feels like he should wait, if only for a minute, to give her a chance to make her peace with everything.
"You ready?"
"Yes, Dean. I'm ready." Sam's got that snotty tone that he adopted when he was about thirteen. He gets it every now and then, and every time he does, Dean wants to do something immature, like give him a wedgie or drop some ice down the back of his shirt. Now, he just ignores it, wanting to get this done before they got too far off track.
"Sam, not talking to you." Dean's looking right at her and but Sarah's not looking at him. She's looking at the row of small stones next to her own and Dean knows then that they're her children. He doesn't know her story, but he can read the sadness on her face. "They're waiting for you, you know. You don't need to stay here."
And suddenly, she's right there in front of him, her face just inches from his. Her eyes were blue, he sees now, and she's carrying around a sorrow that he hopes he never knows. She raises her hand to his face but doesn't touch him. She smiles, softly, the saddest smile he's ever seen, and then she's in the grave, standing on top of her own coffin, which Dean thinks would be weird as shit. She looks at him and he just knows that she's ready.
He pulls a book of matches from his pocket and uses the lighter to start up the entire pack. When he's sure it's really going, he drops the whole thing into the grave and feels the heat on his face as the gasoline ignites. He's sees Sarah there for another second and then she's gone.
"Ready?" Sam's got both shovels and the gas canister in hand. Dean looks at him for a second, taking in the dirt across his chin and the rip in his flannel shirt. His hair's a mess- there's a leaf stuck in there somewhere, Dean is sure.
"Yeah. Let's get the hell out of here." Dean leads the way back to the car, helps put the supplies away and, despite being dirty as hell, gets in the car. He looks back at Cas as he turns the ignition. "Thanks for helping out back there. Oh, wait-"
"You did a good thing, Dean. She needed your help and you gave it. No one can ask for more than that."
"I'm sure they could, Cas." He puts the car in drive and pulls back onto the road. It doesn't have any center lines, or any edge lines for that matter. The pavement is new, so it's still black as ink and hard as hell to see in the darkness. The moon shines down but doesn't do much to illuminate the way. He feels more than sees Castiel lean forward, his breath on the back of Dean's neck.
"You're a good man, Dean Winchester." Cas doesn't lean back this time, just stays where he is, breathing softly in Dean's ear. Dean can hear Sam's sharp intake of breath and guesses that whatever's going on right now, between he and Cas, Sam's seen it. And Dean's sure that he'll be talking about it in the morning because Sam is a big, giant girl about things like that.
Dean's not sure he cares, though. He can still hear the tape in the player clicking along, the sound of the tires on the pavement, the wind in the trees. He keeps driving.